USCCB: Vatican may rule on embryo adoption

Given that the embryo is more important than the law. Given that the individual has not only the right but the duty to form his own conscience. It is given too that frozen embryo has the same status as a week old naturally conceived embryo why would the church want to forbid the adoption?

Sevenup, I'm not saying the Church would want to forbid the adoption. I'm saying that the ruling would likely be that people are not to take it upon themselves to fix the excess embryo situation by having these embryos implanted and that Catholics who have committed the sin of creating some of these embryos are not required to them implanted in order to be absolved of the sin.

I'm saying that the Church's teaching about involving third parties (actually fourth parties, considering that God is the third party) in what is supposed to be between the husband and wife, would be the reason the Church would rule that way.

In my personal opinion, if a couple found itself unable to conceive and feeling that one of these embryos should be theirs, then I personally would "rule" that it would be reasonable to try to have one of these embryos implanted, since I personally don't think there is a whole lot of difference between a medical professional butting into my reproductive business and a Church official butting into it. However, don't forget that these embryos legally belong to the couple of whose genetic material they are composed, and that these people, not the Church, are the one's who must give permission for one of their children to be implanted.

I do see your point about the embryo having been given such a high importance in Catholic teaching that it might be possible for the Church to declare that all these embryos must be given a chance to develop. However, I think this has been a lot of reactive posturing to counteract the anti-life forces that are presumed to exist, and that the reality is that the Church is well aware that God is used to handling situations of lives cut short.

Dear Marie,
The trouble with your analysis from the church's point of view is that these embryos are not potential life, they are life. This is the crux of the church's stand on abortion.
I have a problem with the church's historical tendency to sacrifice almost anything in order to maintain the perception of its absolute teaching authority. One simple example, which I have often cited before, is condoms for health reasons. Since oral contraceptives may be used to treat acne and painful periods, logically condoms should be allowed to prevent the spread of HIV. But allowing oral contraceptives for health reasons does not appear to assail the church's basic stand. Just as abortion for ectopic pregnancy does not violate the church's prohibition. These decisions reside in the medical realm. But condoms are democratic. Condoms reside in the popular realm and so any decision by individuals to protect others would be seen as a massive challenge to the church's teaching authority. Consequently it doesn't matter to the church how many people will die, how many children are orphaned, as long as their authority appears consistent. So in the case you are considering, it does not matter how many children are kept from being born, as long as the church's teaching appears consistent.

Frannie, I think the Church will not state that Catholics are prohibited from adopting embryos, but that it will state that embryo adoption is not the solution to the frozen embryo situation. The existing Church teaching already prohibits embryo adoptions in effect, and I think it would be shocking if the Church condoned or advocated embryo adoption.

In other words, I don't think there is any reason to expect that the Church would change its teaching on the matter out of concern for these individual souls that are currently in suspended animation. I think it is far more likely that the Church would state that the embryos should be unfrozen, allowed to expire, and that no new embryos are to be created in this manner.

Your concern about the Church's teaching on condoms seems to me to be unnecessarily pessimistic. The Church does not have the power to prevent individuals from using condoms or to prevent other charitable organizations from distributing condoms. I believe it only prohibits its representatives from distributing condoms or advocating their use.

Because so much Church teaching is interpreted in absolute terms, I think you would agree that if the Church said it was OK to use condoms to prevent HIV transmission, people would interpret that as meaning the Church requires people to use condoms to prevent HIV transmission. I think the Church prefers that not be the interpretation, and that in this it is being its lax old forgiving self, as in its OK if you don't take it all on yourself to protect your loved ones from suffering.

Marie, you wrote:
I think the Church will not state that Catholics are prohibited from adopting embryos, but that it will state that embryo adoption is not the solution to the frozen embryo situation

That reminds me of the little girl who picked up a stranded star fish and threw it back into the sea. An adult said to her,"Foolish child, you cannot save all the starfish."
"No,"she answered,"but I just saved that one." For the adopted embryos, adoption is the solution.

Marie, I got a little lost in your first paragraph, but for the most part I agree with what you have said. "Allow them to expire" is another way of saying "kill." I am not sure that the church's permission to use condoms would be seen as a requirement to use condoms. But I would say that such a requirement would make perfect sense as part of Thou shalt not kill. We can smile at the church's "lax old forgiving self" but people are dying because of the church's stand. The church actively works against sex education and condom availability in the US and against the funding of ngo's that might advocate condoms in the third world.

Frannie, I think you and I might agree that the most important thing that people in the third world need to protect themselves from AIDS is information. They need to know how AIDS is spread so that they, as individuals, can decide what to do about the risk in their lives and the lives of their children. I think that sometimes we think that just because people are not as educated as we, that they are incapable of reasoning, but even we highly educated people sometimes make stupid decisions simply because we do not have the right information.

It seems to me that if people know enough about AIDS and the relative protection offered by condoms and the obviously certain protection offered by abstinence, they will choose to do what is best in their circumstances, the rules of the Catholic Church notwithstanding. That is, some people might not care, others might choose condoms, other might choose abstinence, and still others might choose to follow Planned Parenthood's detailed instructions on how to engage in sexual activity while protecting oneself from STDs by the use of plastic wrap.

In my observation, people are not particularly drawn to using plastic wrap or condoms, so I do not see why the Church should compromise its teaching on the use of contraceptive products instead of continuing its policy of advocating abstinence even in this instance. Both approaches are less than desirable as a way of life, but the latter, at least, has an element of dignity to it.

Marie, condom use is complex but what is clear is that their are a lot of cultural pressures to have sex with your partner even if you know that it is a danger to you. While it is true that not all people would use condoms were they available, some would and it is clear that condoms while imperfect can effectively reduce disease transmission.

MollyJ, Do you really thing that Catholic Church in Africa is so powerful that it has the last word on whether people can use condoms or not? It seems to me that you are saying that the culture is more powerful than the Church, and I am saying that if the Church has to change the culture, then it might as well change it according to its consistent worldview and not according to a culture that is dominated by a different perspective regarding sex.

The Church's teaching, as I understand it, is if you have HIV, then you should not be sexually active even if you are married. It seems to me that this is just like teaching that someone should not do drugs as opposed to teaching them not to share needles and providing them with clean needles on the assumption that not doing drugs is beyond their capabilities. I would no more expect the Catholic Church to be the distributor of condoms than I would expect it to be the distributor of clean needles.

In other words, I don't fault the Church for taking its position on the matter. However, it does not surprise me that some people on the ground there would take this to a new level and try to prevent people from getting condoms from sources other than the Church. This, of course, is wrong, and I tend to think it is not what the Vatican has in mind when it forbids Church officials from distributing condoms.

Vows of abstinence fail more often than condoms. I would not characterize Africans as uneducated or unable to choose. I characterize them as victims of genocide. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that transfusions are wrong. This is their right. But imagine a world in which they actively sought to curtail the availability of transfusions, lobbied with lies about the efficacy of transfusions and as a result millions of adults died and millions of children were left orphaned, whole generations were lost. Would you say that they should not compromise in their efforts or would you say Enough! There are too many dead already!
Finally I would never suggest that anyone rely on plastic wrap for contraception or disease prevention.

Frannie, In your opinion, who is committing this genocide in which Africans die of HIV?

The Rome that lobbies against condom availability, tells lies about its efficacy and forbids its people from doing what they can to save their own lives.

How about those who run the governments in Africa? Also, if it's Rome, how do you explain all the cases of HIV in the US where condoms are readily available and people are encouraged to use them?

Abstinence only curricula tell young people condoms don't work. Drugs changed AIDS from a quickly terminal to a chronic disease, allowing some to minimize its effects. Some willfully ignorant people insist that their partners couldn't possibly be infected. Some husbands have unprotected sex with their wives while doing the same with men on the "down low." Some kids say that with a condom it's just sex and against the church. Without a condom it's love. Some men, even intelligent men, have been known to beg their partners to forego the condom "just this one time"

d

OK. There are plenty of reasons why condoms don't work, but they don't have to do with the condoms themselves. They have to do with human weakness. Since you recognize that, doesn't it seem to you that if the Church teaches what it teaches about humans being weak and needing God, and if it encourages people to live more conscientiously, then it does more to fight aids than it would if it were handing out condoms?

Marie,
I don't know your situation but you might find it educational to look at some of the Catholic volunteer opportunities to grasp the problem. They need food. They need safe shelter.
In many African countries, women have NO choice about sexual activity. They are NOT allowed to say no. They get raped as a weapon of war. They are given away to settle debts. They are put out to survive on their own because they are not as valuable as boys. They cannot survive on their own without a male protector. Prostitution is sometimes the only way to earn a living. Sexual assault is a fact of life.
I am the adoptive mother of a former street kid and know that they do what they have to do to survive. They do not need more information; they are not stupid; they need a way to be safe and medical care if they have HIV.
I try not to get angry when I read letters like this but it is hard.

Acoolmom007, I think the effort has to go to teaching people that women do have a choice about sexual activity and that opportunities other than prostitution need to be found for them. I hope that the Catholic missionary efforts in Africa are attempting to do that. I hope that these efforts involve providing food, shelter, AND a new way of looking at life and new expectations. It seems to me that if a woman is being raped, she is not going to have the option of asking her attacker to put on a condom.

Marie, on the ground in Africa in many places, the only access to any reproductive or medical care is coming from the Church. The refusal to provide condoms is being circumvented by Church personel on the ground, who understand in ways we do not just how devestating the condom ban is to women. Saying no, often leads to marital rape, while asking a husband to use a condom at least allows him to express his conjugal rights, and they are HIS rights.

I'm with you on the education of women, but women having a choice about sexual expression in marriage is not prevalent in a culture which still practices female genital mutilation. Our world is not their world.

http://enlightenedcatholicism-colkoch.blogspot.com

It's not just the education of women. It's the education of those men, too.

If the Church is the only organization on the ground there and it is able to convince men to use condoms--which I don't think men prefer to use, particularly if they are the selfish brutes people are portraying them to be--then it should be able to convince them that their rights do not include exposing another person to a life-threatening disease and orphaning children.

Perhaps it is the case that those Catholics providing medical care do not have access to these men in that setting, but given the Vatican's ban, the right response would be to make the effort to reach them and not just to treat the immediate problem when it presents itself. One might certainly fault the Church if it fails to go beyond giving limited medical treatment--limited by its philosophy regarding contraceptive use.

PS I don't think genital mutilation is practiced in all African cultures. To those who are used to it, it probably doesn't appear any stranger than removing developing babies from their mothers' wombs seems to us.

I think you need to read some of women's writings about the horror of their own genital mutilation.

AnnieO, I have read some things about it, but everything I read included accounts of peer and maternal pressure to submit to this procedure. This is culture at work. Again, abortion follows the same pattern. I'm sure you've heard the point made that abortion mainly benefits men. I think it is an argument that is not without merit. If women were dominant in our culture, what they do naturally would be fully accomodated. Instead, in order to have positions of authority in the business world, they have to act as if they don't have maternal interests. Male biology sets the standard, and women's biology is modified to follow that standard. Of course, there is also the more obvious benefit to the man who does not wish to be economically responsible for a child.

How can you say that it is better to leave the embryo, ice cold in a vitro dish than to give it a womb to come to life in.